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- Herausgeber: DigiCat
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
In "Initiation, Human and Solar," Alice Bailey presents a profound exploration of spiritual awakening and the evolution of human consciousness. Through a blend of esoteric teachings and metaphysical principles, Bailey articulates a path of initiation that transcends ordinary understanding, engaging with themes of transformation, the nature of the soul, and its connections to the broader cosmos. Her writing is richly layered, interweaving elements of Theosophy with her own mystical insights, making it both a philosophical treatise and an invitation to spiritual practice in the context of the early 20th-century occult revival. Alice Bailey, a pivotal figure in modern spiritual thought, co-founded the Arcane School and authored numerous influential texts that sought to elucidate the relationship between humanity and divine purpose. Her upbringing in a theosophical environment, combined with her later experiences, fueled her desire to bridge the gap between spirituality and practical living. Bailey's work draws upon her diverse knowledge of Eastern and Western mysticism, making her insights accessible yet profound. "Initiation, Human and Solar" is highly recommended for those seeking a deeper understanding of initiation as a transformative process. Whether you are a neophyte or a seasoned seeker, Bailey's articulate and inspiring prose invites readers to embark on their own journeys of self-discovery and spiritual growth. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
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Initiation, Human and Solar
Table of Contents
Introduction
At once a manual and a meditation, Initiation, Human and Solar presents the demanding passage from ordinary awareness to disciplined, world‑serving consciousness, setting individual aspiration against the measured rhythms of a purposeful cosmos, and asking whether genuine spiritual advancement can be pursued without surrendering convenience, ambition, and isolation to the rigorous responsibilities of inner training, cooperative work, and ethical power, so that the seeker learns to coordinate personal illumination with an ordered, living universe whose laws, cycles, and communities require humility, patience, and service as the price of knowledge and as the safeguard for energy, influence, and visionary perception.
First issued in the early 1920s, Alice A. Bailey’s Initiation, Human and Solar belongs to the stream of modern esoteric philosophy that emerged from and alongside Theosophical discussions of spiritual evolution. It is not a narrative but a work of instruction, situating human development within a larger, ordered cosmology. The book addresses readers interested in occult studies and comparative spirituality and assumes a serious, reflective disposition. Its era matters: against a backdrop of modernity’s scientific confidence and social dislocation, the text proposes that disciplined inner work can be approached methodically, with terms defined, processes outlined, and responsibilities articulated for aspirants and teachers.
The premise is straightforward yet ambitious: initiation names a structured refinement of consciousness through which the individual aligns with intelligible patterns that transcend private interest. Bailey presents this through measured exposition, often building from principle to implication, allowing the reader to test ideas against experience. The voice is calm, formal, and instructional; the style favors precise distinctions and carefully introduced terminology; the tone remains earnest rather than sensational. The reading experience rewards patience: rather than anecdotes, one encounters definitions, frameworks, and practical orientations that invite contemplation, steady application, and ethical self‑scrutiny without requiring prior allegiance to any one institution or creed.
Without spoiling the sequence of ideas, the book sketches thresholds of growth and the disciplines required to approach them, always coupling inward sensitivity with outward usefulness. It treats human progress as relational—shaped by mentors, communities, and a wider order that the text names in technical, often symbolic language. The adjective solar signals a cosmological frame, suggesting that human awakening participates in larger systemic life rather than a private ascent. Readers encounter discussions of character, motive, training, and responsible stewardship of knowledge, together with reflections on how group cooperation refines perception. The emphasis consistently falls on service as the natural expression of insight.
Several themes give the work lasting resonance. It insists that knowledge divorced from ethics distorts both the knower and the world, and that rigor and humility must accompany any enlargement of capacity. It frames progress as collective, not merely individual, anticipating contemporary conversations about leadership, systems, and the common good. Its attention to attention—how disciplined focus transforms understanding—speaks to readers negotiating distraction. And its insistence on service as the measure of attainment challenges consumer models of spirituality. Taken together, these emphases offer a counterweight to quick fixes, proposing a patient, integrative path that honors both interior change and social responsibility.
Because the book employs a specialized vocabulary, it is best approached as a study text rather than a casual inspiration manual. Bailey carefully introduces terms, often returning to them from different angles, so that meanings gather through repetition and contrast. Readers may find it helpful to map relationships among concepts and to pause for reflection between sections. The guidance throughout is pragmatic in temper, encouraging steady practice and clear intention while leaving space for individual conscience. The lack of sensationalism may surprise newcomers to occult literature; what one finds instead is sobriety, structure, and an appeal to measured, testable inner work.
Initiation, Human and Solar matters now because it treats spiritual aspiration as a disciplined contribution to a shared world rather than a private escape. It offers a coherent framework for aligning motive, method, and meaning at a time when moral clarity and patient cooperation are at a premium. Without presuming agreement on every metaphysical claim, the book invites readers to examine their lives in light of order, purpose, and service, and to consider how inner refinement might translate into dependable action. Approached with seriousness and openness, it can serve as a durable companion for thoughtful seekers and responsible practitioners.
Synopsis
This early-twentieth-century esoteric treatise by Alice A. Bailey presents a structured account of spiritual initiation as understood within a Theosophically informed framework. Bailey frames the book as part of her collaboration with a Tibetan teacher, offering a systematic outline rather than personal narrative. The argument opens by defining initiation as an ordered series of expansions in consciousness through which a disciple becomes steadily more serviceable to humanity. It positions the topic against a cosmological background that includes the human family, the planetary life, and the wider solar system, establishing terms and scope before turning to the path, its custodians, and its ethical demands.
Having set definitions, the text distinguishes between human initiation, concerned with the soul’s dominance over the personality, and solar initiation, which relates those attainments to larger systemic realities. Initiation is described as a natural phase of evolution, not a reward, and proceeds by tested growth in character, capacity, and inclusiveness. The emphasis falls on disciplined living, intelligent love, and purposeful service as the means by which consciousness expands. Bailey summarizes the rationale for secrecy and ceremony historically attached to initiation, while underscoring that the true work is interior and practical. The disciple’s motive, orientation to group good, and steadiness under pressure are recurring measures.
The work then sketches the Spiritual Hierarchy said to oversee human development. It presents an ordered center of consciousness with defined functions, portraying a lineage of adept instructors who administer the initiatory process on behalf of planetary purpose. The exposition describes broad departmental responsibilities that steward governance, teaching, and civilization’s creative energies, situating discipleship within a living chain of mentorship. Rather than inviting personality devotion, the narrative stresses impersonality and law, emphasizing that contact with more experienced workers follows demonstrated fitness. The relation between Hierarchy and humanity is treated as dynamic cooperation, with training geared to practical world service rather than withdrawal.
A central doctrinal thread is the teaching on the seven rays, introduced as fundamental qualities or streams of energy conditioning souls, institutions, and epochs. By correlating temperament and vocation with ray influences, the book offers a psychological key to the disciplines of the path. It does not present the rays as deterministic, but as contextual factors shaping methods of training, typical strengths, and characteristic tests. The discussion links the rays to the organization of the Hierarchy and to the staging of initiation, suggesting how differing emphases converge in a common goal. This provides a framework for understanding diversity within unity in spiritual work.
Turning to preparation, Bailey delineates practical requirements for aspirants: ethical purification, intelligent meditation, ordered service, and self-forgetfulness. Progress is framed as cumulative and exacting, involving attention to physical, emotional, and mental balance, and to the wise use of energy. The text discusses the role of vows, the pitfalls of psychic glamor, and the need for harmlessness and truthfulness, while cautioning against haste. Karma and reincarnation supply the temporal backdrop for steady effort across lives. The orientation gradually shifts from personal achievement to group responsibility, indicating that real advancement is measured by usefulness to the whole rather than by phenomena or status.
Subsequent chapters outline the progressive initiations in general terms, treating each as an expansion of realized identity accompanied by increased responsibility. Symbol and ceremony are acknowledged as teaching instruments, yet the essence is presented as inner realization verified by service. The argument situates human attainment within a larger planetary and solar pattern, hinting at stages beyond the human field that justify the book’s title. By embedding individual growth in a systemic cosmology, the text links microcosm and macrocosm without dwelling on speculative detail. The result is a map that privileges method and ethics over sensationalism while preserving a sense of scale.
Initiation, Human and Solar thus functions as a primer for Bailey’s later esoteric corpus and as a synthesis of initiatory themes current in modern Theosophy. Its significance lies in organizing disparate occult notions into a coherent path-oriented pedagogy that stresses service, group orientation, and disciplined character as the proofs of progress. Whether read as metaphysical teaching or as a historical artifact of twentieth‑century esotericism, it formulates questions about authority, training, and the social expression of spirituality that continue to resonate. The book’s restraint regarding sensational claims helps maintain a focus on responsibility and usefulness, keeping its core message broadly accessible.
Historical Context
Initiation, Human and Solar appeared in 1922 in New York, issued by the Lucifer Publishing Company that Alice A. Bailey and her husband Foster Bailey had just established (renamed Lucis Publishing Company in 1925). Bailey (1880-1949), a British-born esoteric author who settled in the United States by the 1910s, wrote amid the unsettled early interwar years. The book opened a long series she presented as teachings from a "Tibetan" instructor. Its immediate setting is the Anglo-American occult milieu linked to Theosophical lodges, meditation circles, and study groups. The volume's didactic tone mirrors a public seeking structured, instructional spiritual material after years of war, loss, and social change.
The Theosophical Society, founded in New York in 1875 by Helena P. Blavatsky and Henry S. Olcott and headquartered at Adyar (Madras/Chennai) from the 1880s, shaped the book's conceptual background. The Society promoted universal brotherhood, karma, reincarnation, and a teaching lineage of "Masters." In the early twentieth century it was led prominently by Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater and sponsored the Order of the Star in the East (1911) around Jiddu Krishnamurti. Bailey became active in the American section during the 1910s, associated with the Krotona community in California, and left the Society after disputes with leadership, grounding her subsequent work outside its institutional authority.
Postwar conditions strongly framed readers' expectations. World War I's casualties and the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic intensified bereavement and questions about survival and meaning. Spiritualism, New Thought, and Christian Science already had sizable publics, while the Society for Psychical Research (founded 1882) continued inquiries into telepathy and mediumship. Occult orders such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (founded 1887) and the Ordo Templi Orientis circulated initiatory models. In this marketplace of ideas, graded "initiations" promised progress and coherence. Bailey's book organizes that promise into a curriculum-like exposition, aligning personal discipline and service with a structured path many interwar seekers found intelligible.
Bailey's move from Theosophical membership to independent publishing mirrored a broader trend of decentralized esoteric instruction. In 1922 she and Foster Bailey registered the Lucifer Publishing Company in New York; in 1925 it became the Lucis Publishing Company, later part of the Lucis Trust. In 1923 they founded the Arcane School to deliver meditation training and study via correspondence and classes. Initiation, Human and Solar functioned as an entree to that programmatic approach, supplying terminology, stages, and expectations for study groups. The book's circulation through small presses, lectures, and mail-order courses exemplifies how interwar occult literature reached international audiences without reliance on a single lodge system.
Transnational exchange between Asian and Western ideas had gathered momentum since the late nineteenth century, through translations, travel, and public lectures, including Swami Vivekananda's address at the 1893 Parliament of the World's Religions. Theosophy popularized Sanskrit and Tibetan terms in Euro-American discourse. Bailey worked squarely within that vocabulary. In 1919 she reported telepathic contact with a "Tibetan" teacher, Djwhal Khul, framing her books, beginning with Initiation, Human and Solar, as dictated instruction. Subsequent volumes, such as her commentary on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (1927), continued this East-West synthesis. The book's references and tone assume an audience already conversant with comparative religion and occult correspondences.
The 1920s public sphere also absorbed a language of science and psychology. Einstein's general theory of relativity gained wide attention after the 1919 eclipse expeditions, and quantum theory reshaped talk of matter and energy. Psychology, from Freud's psychoanalysis to Jung's typology (1921), offered models of inner development. Experimental studies of telepathy and clairvoyance circulated beyond academic circles. Bailey's text engages that milieu by adopting quasi-technical classifications—planes, centers, and rays—seeking to systematize metaphysical claims with orderly taxonomies. This procedural style positioned occult training as compatible with modern rationality, an attempt to present esoteric practice as disciplined study rather than purely visionary or devotional enthusiasm.
Interwar internationalism and social reform formed another backdrop. The League of Nations convened in 1919, humanitarian organizations proliferated, and women's suffrage expanded (United States, 1920; Britain, 1918 and 1928), widening roles for female organizers and writers. Theosophical ideals of universal brotherhood resonated with these currents. Bailey and her collaborators emphasized service to humanity and group work; they later founded World Goodwill in 1932 to encourage cooperative, ethical civic engagement. Initiation, Human and Solar embeds that ethos by linking spiritual advancement to responsibility within a wider human community, echoing contemporary movements that sought ethical reconstruction after war through education, voluntary associations, and cross-border cooperation.
Reception reflected the divided esoteric field. The Theosophical Society did not endorse Bailey's program, and she established parallel institutions and terminology outside its imprimatur. Her autobiography later criticized what she regarded as authoritarian tendencies in organizational leadership, even as her writings articulated an emphatically hierarchical metaphysical order. Initiation, Human and Solar thus captures a core interwar tension: skepticism toward centralized religious authority alongside a quest for ordered, transpersonal structures of meaning. Its influence persisted through mid-century occultism and later New Age currents, especially in the dissemination of "seven rays" teaching, demonstrating how interwar syntheses of science-tinged mysticism and service ideals shaped modern esoteric culture.
Initiation, Human and Solar
The Constitution of Man
The constitution of man, as considered in the following pages, is basically threefold, as follows:—
I. The Monad, or pure Spirit, the Father in Heaven.
This aspect reflects the three aspects of the Godhead:
and is only contacted at the final initiations, when man is nearing the end of his journey and is perfected. The Monad reflects itself again in
II. The Ego, Higher Self, or Individuality.
This aspect is potentially
The Ego begins to make its power felt in advanced men, and increasingly on the Probationary Path until by the third initiation the control of the lower self by the higher is perfected, and the highest aspect begins to make its energy felt.
The Ego reflects itself in
III. The Personality, or lower self, physical plane man.
This aspect is also threefold:
The aim of evolution is therefore to bring man to the realisation of the Egoic aspect and to bring the lower nature under its control.
Introduction
Before entering upon the subject matter of the following articles on Initiation, on the Paths that open before the perfected man, and on the Occult Hierarchy, certain statements may be made which seem essential for the judicious study and comprehension of the ideas submitted.
It is to be recognised that throughout this volume facts are alleged and definite statements made which are not susceptible of immediate proof by the reader. Lest it be inferred that the writer arrogates to herself any credit or personal authority for the knowledge implied she emphatically disavows all such claims or representations. She cannot do otherwise than present these statements as matters of fact. Nevertheless, she would urge those who find somewhat of merit in these pages that they he not estranged by any appearance of dogmatism in the presentation. Nor should the inadequacy of the personality of the writer act as a deterrent to the open-minded consideration of the message to which her name happens to be appended. In spiritual issues, names, personalities, and the voice of external authority, hold small place. That alone is a safe guide which holds its warranty from inner recognition and inner direction[1q]. It is not, therefore, material whether the reader receive the message of these pages as a spiritual appeal in an idealistic setting, a presentation of alleged facts, or a theory evolved by one student and presented for the consideration of fellow students. To each it is offered for whatever of inner response it may evoke, for whatever of inspiration and of light it may bring.
In these days of the shattering of the old form and the building of the new, adaptability is needed. We must avert the danger of crystallisation through pliability and expansion. The "old order changeth," but primarily it is a change of dimension and of aspect, and not of material or of foundation. The fundamentals have always been true. To each generation is given the part of conserving the essential features of the old and beloved form, but also of wisely expanding and enriching it. Each cycle must add the gain of further research and scientific endeavour, and subtract that which is worn out and of no value. Each age must build in the product and triumphs of its period, and abstract the accretions of the past that would dim and blur the outline. Above all, to each generation is given the joy of demonstrating the strength of the old foundations, and the opportunity to build upon these foundations a structure that will meet the needs of the inner evolving life.
The ideas that are elaborated here find their corroboration in certain facts that are stated in the occult literature now extant. These facts are three in number, and are as follows:—
(a) In the creation of the sun and the seven sacred planets composing our solar system, our Logos employed matter that was already impregnated with particular qualities. Mrs. Besant[1] in her book, "Avataras," (which some of us think the most valuable of all her writings, because one of the most suggestive), makes the statement that "our solar system is builded out of matter already existing, out of matter already gifted with certain properties …" (page 48) . This matter, therefore, we deduce, held latent certain faculties that were forced to demonstrate in a peculiar way, under the law of Cause and Effect, as does all else in the universe.
(b) All manifestation is of a septenary nature, and the Central Light which we call Deity, the one Ray of Divinity, manifests first as a Triplicity, and then as a Septenary. The One God shines forth as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and these three are again reflected through the Seven Spirits before the Throne, or the seven Planetary Logoi. The students of occultism of non-Christian origin may call these Beings the One Ray, demonstrating through the three major Rays and the four minor, making a divine Septenary. The Synthetic Ray which blends them all is the great Love-Wisdom Ray, for verily and indeed "God is Love." This Ray is the indigo Ray, and is the blending Ray. It is the one which will, at the end of the greater cycle, absorb the others in the achievement of synthetic perfection. It is the manifestation of the second aspect of Logoic life. It is this aspect, that of the Form-Builder, that makes this solar system of ours the most concrete of the three major systems. The Love or Wisdom aspect demonstrates through the building of the form, for "God is Love," and in that God of Love we "live and move and have our being," and will to the end of aeonian manifestation.
(c) The seven planes of Divine Manifestation, or the seven major planes of our system, are but the seven subplanes of the lowest cosmic plane. The seven Rays of which we hear so much, and which hold so much of interest and of mystery, are likewise but the seven sub-rays of one cosmic Ray. The twelve creative Hierarchies are themselves but subsidiary branches of one cosmic Hierarchy. They form but one chord in the cosmic symphony. When that sevenfold cosmic chord, of which we form so humble a part, reverberates in synthetic perfection, then, and only then, will come comprehension of the words in the Book of Job: "The morning stars sang together." Dissonance yet sounds forth, and discord arises from many systems, but in the progression of the aeons an ordered harmony will eventuate, and the day will dawn when (if we dare speak of eternities in the terms of time) the sound of the perfected universe will resound to the uttermost bounds of the furthest constellation. Then will be known the mystery of "the marriage song of the heavens."
The reader is also asked to remember and weigh certain ideas prior to taking up the study of Initiation. Due to the extreme complexity of the matter it is an utter impossibility for us to do more than get a general idea of the scheme; hence the futility of dogmatism. We can do no more than sense a fraction of some wonderful whole, utterly beyond the reach of our consciousness,—a whole that the highest Angel or Perfected Being is but beginning to realise. When we recognise the fact that the average man is as yet fully conscious only on the physical plane, nearly conscious on the emotional plane, and only developing the consciousness of the mental plane, it is obvious that his comprehension of cosmic data can be but rudimentary. When we recognise the further fact, that to he conscious on a plane and to have control on that plane are two very different conditions, it becomes apparent how remote is the possibility of our approximating more than the general trend of the cosmic scheme.
We must recognise also that danger lies in dogma and in the hide-bound facts of textbooks, and that safety lies in flexibility, and in a shifting angle of vision. A tact, for instance, looked at from the standpoint of humanity (using the word "fact" in the scientific sense as that which has been demonstrated past all doubt and question) may not be a fact from the standpoint of a Master. To Him it may be but part of a greater fact, only a fraction of the whole. Since His vision is fourth and fifth dimensional, His realisation of the place of time in eternity must be more accurate than ours. He sees things from above downwards, and as one to whom time is not.
An inexplicable principle of mutation exists in the Mind of the Logos, or the Deity of our solar system, and governs all His actions. We see but the ever changing forms, and catch glimpses of the steadily evolving life within those forms, but as yet have no clue to the principle which works through the shifting kaleidoscope of solar systems, rays, hierarchies, planets, planes, schemes, rounds, races, and sub-races. They interweave, interlock, and interpenetrate each other, and utter bewilderment is ours as the wonderful pattern they form unfolds before us. We know that somewhere in that scheme we, the human hierarchy, have our place. All, therefore, that we can do is to seize upon any data that seems to affect our own welfare, and concerns our own evolution, and from the study of the human being in the three worlds seek to understand somewhat the macrocosm. We know not how the one can become the three, the three become the seven, and so proceed to inconceivable differentiation. To human vision this interweaving of the system forms an unimaginable complexity, the key to which seems not to be forthcoming. Seen from the angle of a Master we know that all proceeds in ordered sequence. Seen from the angle of divine vision the whole will move in harmonious unison, producing a form geometrically accurate. Browning had hold of a part of this truth when he wrote:
"All's change, but permanence as well"… and continued:
"Truth inside, and outside, truth also; and between each, falsehood that is change, as truth is permanence."
"Truth successively takes shape, one grade above its last presentment…"
We must remember also that beyond a certain point it is not safe nor wise to carry the communication of the facts of the solar system. Much must remain esoteric and veiled. The risks of too much knowledge are far greater than the menace of too little. With knowledge comes responsibility and power,—two things for which the race is not yet ready. Therefore, all we can do is to study and correlate with what wisdom and discretion may be ours, using the knowledge that may come for the good of those we seek to help, and recognising that in the wise use of knowledge comes increased capacity to receive the hidden wisdom. Coupled also with the wise adaptation of knowledge to the surrounding need must grow the capacity for discreet reservation, and the use of the discriminating faculty. When we can wisely use, discreetly withhold, and soundly discriminate, we give the surest guarantee to the watching Teachers of the race that we are ready for a fresh revelation.
We must resign ourselves to the fact that the only way in which we can find the clue to the mystery of the rays, systems, and hierarchies, lies in the study of the law of correspondences or analogy. It is the one thread by which we can find our way through the labyrinth, and the one ray of light that shines through the darkness of the surrounding ignorance. H. P. Blavatsky, in "The Secret Doctrine," has told us so, but as yet very little has been done by students to avail themselves of that clue. In the study of this Law we need to remember that the correspondence lies in its essence, and not in the exoteric working out of detail as we think we see it from our present standpoint. The factor of time leads us astray for one thing; we err when we attempt to fix stated times or limits; all in evolution progresses through merging, with a constant process of overlapping and mingling. Only broad generalities and a recognition of fundamental points of analogy are possible to the average student. The moment he attempts to reduce to chart form and to tabulate in detail, he enters realms where he is bound to err, and staggers through a fog that will ultimately overwhelm him.
Nevertheless, in the scientific study of this law of analogy will come a gradual growth of knowledge, and in the slow accumulation of facts will gradually be built up an ever-expanding form, that will embody much of the truth. The student will then awake to the realization that after all the study and toil he has at least a wide general conception of the Logoic thoughtform into which he can fit the details as he acquires them through many incarnations. This brings us to the last point to be considered before entering upon the subject proper, which is:
That the development of the human being is but the passing from one state of consciousness to another. It is a succession of expansions, a growth of that faculty of awareness that constitutes the predominant characteristic of the indwelling Thinker. It is the progressing from consciousness polarised in the personality, lower self, or body, to that polarised in the higher self, ego, or soul, thence to a polarisation in the Monad, or Spirit, till the consciousness eventually is Divine. As the human being develops, the faculty of awareness extends first of all beyond the circumscribing walls that confine it within the lower kingdoms of nature (the mineral, vegetable and animal) to the three worlds of the evolving personality, to the planet whereon he plays his part, to the system wherein that planet revolves, until it finally escapes from the solar system itself and becomes universal.
Initiation Defined
The question anent initiation is one that is coming more and more before the public. Before many centuries pass the old mysteries will be restored, and an inner body will exist in the Church—the Church of the period, of which the nucleus is already forming—wherein the first initiation will become exoteric, in this sense only, that the taking of the first initiation will, before so very long, be the most sacred ceremony of the Church, performed exoterically as one of the mysteries given at stated periods, attended by those concerned. It will also hold a similar place in the ritual of the Masons. At this ceremony those ready for the first initiation will be publicly admitted to the Lodge by one of its members, authorised to do so by the great Hierophant Himself.
Four words defined.
When we speak of Initiation, of wisdom, of knowledge, or of the probationary Path, what do we mean[2q]? We use the words so glibly, without due consideration of the meaning involved. Take, for instance, the word first mentioned. Many are the definitions, and many are the explanations to be found as to its scope, the preparatory steps, the work to be done between initiations, and its result and effects. One thing before all else is apparent to the most superficial student, and that is, that the magnitude of the subject is such that in order to deal with it adequately one should be able to write from the viewpoint of an initiate; when this is not the case, anything that is said may be reasonable, logical, interesting, or suggestive, but not conclusive.
